Customs declaration

What it means

A customs declaration is the act by which a person proposes placing goods under a particular customs procedure, such as release for free circulation, export, transit or customs warehousing. It opens the customs proceedings, and customs calculates duty and tax from it.

It is filed electronically in the customs system and contains the declarant’s details with the EORI number, the consignor and consignee, a description of the goods, their Combined Nomenclature code, the customs value, origin, weight and delivery terms. Its structure is based on the single administrative document.

The declarant is the person who lodges the declaration in their own name and answers for its accuracy. They may file it themselves or through a customs representative, acting either directly in the company’s name or indirectly in its own name on the company’s behalf, in which case it is jointly liable for the customs debt.

How it works in practice

On import the usual procedure is release for free circulation. Customs assesses duty and import VAT, and for a VAT payer the release decision is the document that supports the VAT deduction, so we file it with the purchase invoice.

On export the declaration is lodged in the state where the exporter is established or where the goods are packed, and once the goods leave the EU the company receives an electronic exit confirmation. That is the key evidence for the VAT exemption; without it the exporter has to account for the tax.

The declaration and the books must agree: value, currency, exchange rate and invoice number. For regular imports we reconcile customs decisions with purchase invoices and the VAT booked, so that differences do not surface only at an audit.

What to watch out for

An error in the declaration, such as a wrong commodity code or an understated customs value, can be corrected later, but customs may also assess the customs debt retrospectively and impose a fine. The declarant is responsible for accuracy even when a representative completed the declaration from the declarant’s data.

With indirect representation by a courier company, the business receives the decision late or not at all. Without it import VAT cannot be deducted, so for orders from outside the EU we ask the carrier for copies of the customs documents.